Sonic Experience

Walking around Urban today I had one of those moments where the music on the stereo is playing and the lighting in the store is right, yellow, warm and its almost like you're transported, standing there in this endlessly perfect pair of cotton boots, singing along until you realize what you're listening to. I've been inundating myself with El Perro del Mar lately, unable to get nearly enough of her voice, of the dreamy soundscape, of the way I feel light and spring time as the speakers blow out the ethereal melodies. Let Me In starts playing on the stereo and I am humming along, unaware of why I am feeling so warm and why these boots fit so perfectly, why I like the reflection I see so much. I realize that it's her and I am happy, and as the song ends I start humming along to the next song, once again blissfully unaware of why it is I know that song, why it is I automatically start to hum along. It's Jonathan Richman's Abdul and Cleopatra, a song that I've only heard a handful of times in my life, and an artist that I have had very little contact with. As I start to think to myself - why do I know this song? - I remember: when I younger, 14 maybe, an internet beau of mine sent me a mixtape that had that song on it. I would play the tape over and over again, confused by and not fully in love with the songs he had taped, but strung along regardless, unable to close my ears to any sort of even slightly-well crafted indie pop. I remember fast forwarding over that song sometimes, finding it annoying and not appreciating the message implied by its inclusion on the tape; other times, sitting on the living room floor (at that point I was still too young to have a tape deck in my room), listening to the song and finding something charming about his faltering voice, about the obnoxiously sappy lyrics, imaging what sort of meager four-eyed boy could have been singing.